Since learning of the impending closure, Ramirez and other drivers have been preparing for delays.

“It’s already tough to get on the beach,” Nima Noori said. “Traffic is already bad, and it’s going to get even worse.”

Noori said he lives in downtown Miami and often visits the beach on weekends.

“I’ll probably stop coming here,” he said. At least until the construction is done.

“It’s going to be a mess I think,” Philip Maranges, a Miami Beach, said. “It’s always backed up as it is.”

The flyover was supposed to shut down Sunday, but construction was pushed back a day because of weather.

“We actually have to restripe sections of the roadway,” said Enrique Tamayo with the Florida Department of Transportation. “We can’t do that while the road is wet. So that’s what we’re going to do (Monday), weather permitting of course.”

On Monday evening, crews were beginning the process of re-striping the road at Alton Rd. and 5th Street to make it possible for driver to turn north on Alton while coming from the causeway.

The flyover project is just one part of a plan to improve drainage along Alton Road.

While construction has been in the works for a while, the flyover closure caught some commissioners off guard.

A few of them were not aware of the change in the construction timeline thanks to a mix-up at the city manager’s office.

FDOT officials said closing the road for 30 days, rather than periodic overnight closures over the course of 6 months, would be more efficient.

“We realize the project is a disruption,” Tamayo said. “We try to communicate as effectively as we can with not just the city, but with individual business owners and residents as well.”

Nima Noori called the closure a “traffic-pocalyspe”.

Meanwhile, cab driver Ivan Ramirez said the traffic is all part of his job.

“I’m looking forward. We just have to adapt,” Ramirez said. “Just like everything else in life.”

Lauren Pastrana is the co-anchor of CBS4 News This Morning airing Monday-Friday, from 5 to 7 AM. She joined CBS Miami in April 2012 as a reporter. She is an Emmy nominated, multimedia journalist with experience in television, radio and web-based ...